


The Breaking Point

by distractionpie



Series: Band Of Brothers Week [6]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Death, Episode: s01e07 The Breaking Point, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9909143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: When a coin is tossed, in some universes it lands heads and in others it lands tails. Another way things might have gone in the Bois Jacques.Band of Brothers Week Day Six - Angst.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The notes for this have sat in my documents folder under the filename 'evil' for a few weeks while I weighed up if I was prepared to make a full fic of the moment of angst that had come to mind. Ultimately, I don't think I'm prepared to go in depth with this AU, but here are the initial scenes.

His whole front is getting soaked through. It's stupid to dwell on it when shells are falling all around him but his mind keeps going in circles thinking of how dumb it would be come through all this and then be taken out by a chest cold from laying in the snow.

"LUZ!"

He's snapped out of his thoughts by the perfect unison of Skip and Penkala that allows their call to carry over the sound of the barrage.

George has to move. The snow is almost blinding him, he can barely make out the shape of them, both upright in their hole and waving him on. They should be down, be taking full advantage of their cover, but if they did he’d be left disoriented and searching hopelessly for a hole.

He’s almost at them when he hears the far too familiar whistle-thud of a shell.

Skip and Penkala fall silent and George’s heart stops.

 

“ _Oh holy shit._ ”

 

And starts again at the sound of Penkala’s shaky exclamation.

As he scrambles through the snow he sees it, the sinister form of shell buried lifeless in the edge of their foxhole. A dud.

It’s the first mercy they’ve felt in weeks, and as he stares at it, and then back up at Penk and Skip and their gawping faces, he _thanks_ the lord in his prayers instead of begging for once.

He’s basically reached them now, almost oblivious to the barrage in the face of his relief. “You’re okay?” he hollers, and after a moment Penkala blinks through the shock and nods. His lips make the shape of Luz’s name, although no sound makes it to George’s ears.

He doesn’t want to climb over the shell to get to them, doesn’t want to risk what might happen if he knocked against it and anyway the hole wasn’t dug for three. From where he is now he can see Lip’s hole just a few yards away, and he points across in that direction so that they can see where he’s going.

He moves fast now, doesn’t stumble, carried by the strength of his relief until he’s sliding into the hole, kicking up dirt as he goes.

“You alright?” Lip calls.

Alright? George is shaking with relief as he nods and curls into Lipton’s side. He can't stand to lose any more friends, not after Joe and Bill and Buck, the whole company is worn too thin. He is worn too thin, but he won't break. He's going to see this war through to the end, do it for all the guys who've had that option stolen from them. Skip and Penk getting a dud is proof that things can still be okay.

He hears the whistle of a falling shell, it sounds close but they always do, there's something about these woods that makes sound go funny, whisks the voices of your buddies away on the wind until you wonder if the whole line hadn't packed up and moved on without you, but makes every shell sound like it's coming down right on top of you, even when it isn't.

He feels the grip on his jacket tighten as Lipton pulls him closer, tucking George's head under his chin and pressing George's face into his coat.

“Wha-?” he starts.

 

\---

 

Skip’s rosary clatters in his shaking fingers as he lays nearly flat in the foxhole. Beside him Penkala is pale and frozen still in a half crouch, eyes locked on the shell. Waiting.

“It’s a dud,” Skip says shakily and Penkala blinks. It’s still dangerous though, and so he hadn’t protested when Luz had kept moving through the barrage instead of disturbing it, although now something low down in his stomach is souring at the knowledge he’d let a friend expose himself to further fire.

There is no time for dwelling on horrors that didn't happen when there's plenty that have, but he finds himself struck by the urge to check. Climbing back to his knees he inches upwards until he can see across the yards of icy ground, he peers over in the direction of Lipton’s hole. He can see nothing and he hopes it means that George has got there safely and they’re keeping good cover, that Lipton isn’t indulging tendency to run out and help his guys.

As reassured as he can be, he’s about to slip back down in the hole when suddenly there is a flash and an explosion of dirt where Luz and Lip's hole was.

He falls back in horror

"What? What is it?" Penkala is leaning up and trying to get a look but Skip drags him back down into cover. "What? Skip, you look like...” Penkala shakes his head. “What happened?"

"L- L-" his mouth can't seem to make the shape of their names, "They got hit."

"Who? Who got hit?" Penkala sounds concerned but not quite comprehending.

"L- fuck... Luz and Lipton, Penk, their hole just.... a direct hit..."

And Penkala is shaking his head in denial, "You couldn't see that far in all this," he says, "They—they're fine... It was probably a trick of your eyes..." But Skip knows what he saw and from the look in his eyes Penkala is barely fooling himself. "Even if they were… We got a dud. They might…" He trails off, slumping against Skip’s side. Skip throws one arm around his shoulders in wan comfort, gripping his rosary tighter in the other hand. A moment ago he’d been comforted that they were where they ought to be, but now he wishes Lip were running about in the open; that Luz had gotten turned about and ended up in another hole; or that Luz was with them, never mind the dud.

He can feel the truth of what he witnessed in his bones, but Penkala still has the look of somebody clinging to desperate, impossible hope. As soon as the shelling breaks Penk is climbing out of the hole, and Skip can see no other option than to follow him, though his stomach lurches as he thinks of how pissed Lip would be at them leaving their hole before they know the shelling's done for good.

Now they aren’t worrying about keeping low, it takes scant steps in the snow to cross over to where Lip and Luz should be, but there’s no foxhole anymore.

His eyes skim over the crater, taking in the way the shrapnel and the dirt mixed in with the snow and then his eyes alight upon- no—

He turns, heaving into the snow and a moment later Penkala must see it too, because he’s staggering back from the hole, but Skip can’t look at him right now. He thought he’d seen everything already in this war, from rolling in pig guts at Toccoa to all of the horrors that the Krauts rained down upon them, but nothing could prepare him for two of the best men he knew being obliterated so thoroughly that their remains are little more than a stain in the snow.

Not them. Not like this.

 

\---

 

When the shelling stops Malarkey waits, low in his hole, for the next round to begin or for Lipton to call out – an all clear or a command to stay low, even as he runs out of cover to check the status of his men. Instead a minute passes in silence, and then another, and then a third.

He hears nothing. No order to stay, no order to move. Just the eerie silence of the forest.

 Starts one more mental count to sixty, and is already scrambling out of the hole by the time he’s hit forty-five.

He swings right, weaving his way through the trees over to where Skip and Penkala ought to be.

Their hole is empty except for a single shell. A shell that hasn’t gone off but is still smoking slightly.

 _‘They aren’t here because they’ve moved to somewhere safer’_ , he tells himself, the only explanation he’s willing to accept and only a few steps later he sees them.

For a moment he’s flooded with relief to see them standing and whole, but as he gets closer he makes out their expressions.

Muck is slumped, staring at the ground, while Penkala’s eyes dart wildly but appear to see nothing. The look reminds him achingly of Buck, of the blankness within him after losing Toye and Guarnere, and Malarkey’s blood runs cold to see two more friends the same way. He’s not sure if he can stand it, they’ve already lost too many to have anybody else break, and certainly not two of the most positive guys in the company. If Skip and Penkala are losing it then they'll only have Luz to keep up morale and that’s a lot to put on one guy, even one as resilient as Luz.

“What’s happened?” he asks them softly, certain that they aren’t this shaken over a single near miss with a dud. It’s like they don’t hear him. “Where’s Sergeant Lipton?” he says instead, because if anybody will know what has happened, how to help them, it’s Lip.

Skip shakes his head slowly, but gives no answer.

Freaked out, Malarkey starts to step around him, intent on searching out somebody else. There’s no sign of physical injury on either of them, so he won’t call for a medic, but whatever’s wrong, they need more help than he can give.

Just as he passes, Penkala’s hand darts out, wrapping around his forearm in an iron, claw like grip. “Penk?” he asks hesitantly, and then, “Alex?”

“D-d-d-” Penkala’s eyes are wide, and he’s shaking. “D-don’t look.”

“Don’t look at what?” Malarkey says, feeling an edge of panic seep in. He remembers the mess made of Toye and Guarnere’s legs, how he’d wanted to shut his eyes or look away, but he couldn’t, and if this is something like that… “Does somebody need help?” he demands, trying to tug himself free of Penkala. Even as he asks, certainty settles over him like a fog. There’s surely nothing else that could provoke this sort of horror. “If somebody is hurt-?”

“They’re not hurt.” Skip’s voice is unwavering and hollow. “They’re gone.”


End file.
